lol the NW Comp community just do group fights and 1v1 linebattles they are not really influencing Bcof ...

Well reading between the lines and knowing the love of Melee only comps within the NW Community, It seems Melee within BCoF is being given equal prominace in what is predominantly musketry game. Im sure we might find other concessions as the game progresses.

so what you saying is no melee combat in a war that had a good deal of bayonet combat yes its not the most historical bayonet fighting but its there to make the game fun unless you just want a click fest like verdun and war of rights

Plenty of people just jump on the game to meme with their friends or walk into cannonballs, or plant sapper crates in earthworks to try to blow up enemies charging artillery even if it would have been more effective to run to the rest of the team and melee with them. Those sorts of people were never interested in competitive. They try to win, sure, but they're more interested in fun.

This, is why i still play NW daily and enjoy the game after 8 years of playing.

Fair enough, you got me there. But (of course there's a but) let me rephrase that: It's unnecessarily making your life more difficult for no good reason. Try that with a ramrod that's been in the weather or has been slightly bend, as so often happens when you use the ramrod as a tool to cook (Which is something mainstream re-enactors won't do exactly because it will bend the ramrod). It will be much more resistent and you can apply absolutely no force with just your pinky.

This is what it says in Casey's drill, which is identical to Hardee in this section, by the way:

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(Third motion.) Force the rammer home by placing the little finger of the right hand on the head of the rammer; pass the left hand down the barrel to the extent of the arm, without depressing the shoulder.

Now, this often gets interpreted, as in this video, that one must place the little finger and the little finger only on the ramrod. But you can place the little finger on the rammer and still use the (whole force of the) hand. My guess is they specifically mention the little finger, as placing another finger would place part of the hand over the loaded barrel. There is no mention of this movement in Napoleonic drill manuals, and again my presumption is that they added is as they realized rammers don't just slide down the gun freely.

As an little addition, this re-enactor does not follow the actual instruction on how to use the rammer.

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6. Ram—CARTRIDGE.

Insert the rammer as far as the right, and steady it in this position with the thumb of the left hand; seize the rammer at the small end with the thumb and fore-finger of the right hand, the back of the band to the front; press the ball home, the elbows near the body.

He does it the re-enactor way, which you can also see in WoR. Wiggling the ramrod down four times, without much force. Of course, this works because he's using a small charge, no bullet and no paper. In real life, when loading with paper and a realistic charge, even without a bullet, you can't just wiggle the ramrod a little and expect result. You grab the end of the ramrod and ram it down, with force, in one go, and immediatly return the rammer. As it says in the drill manual: You press the ball home. In the 1791 Napoleonic drill, it says (translated from Dutch)

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One stretches the arm as long as one can, with the right hand climbing up, to grab the rammer with the extended thumb and bend first finger, while the others remain closed. One stamps twice with force into the barrel [...]

Note that specify the amounts of times you ram down, exactly to avoid wasting time. There's some discussion whether or not to place the thumb on top of the ramrod, or alongside. For safety reasons, we tend to place it alongside but it's harder to apply force that way.

Speaking of re-enactor drill, god, 2:08 made me cringe. That rear-rank barrel is so close to that front-rank man. STEP FORWARD WHEN FIRING DAMN IT.

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183. The rear-rank men, in aiming, will each carry the right foot about eight inches to the right, and towards the left heel of the man next it the right, inclining the upper part of the body forward.

Why would you want to dumb down a melee system that already is very easy to learn? I think FSE should try to make it more advanced and complex if anything.Because the primary focus of the competitive melee scene is bayonets, at a certain level of skill fights become very monotonous due to the game rewarding ultra passive, low-risk styles (To be fair though this mostly only affects 1v1 duels, but dueling is still a huge part of the competitive scene).Once you play the game long enough, feints don't really phase you since there are only 2 animations for attacks. You could close your eyes and you'd have a 50/50 chance of blocking it.A simple fix would be to increase the speed in feinting animations, or just speed up the game in general.Another thing I think should be looked at is glances/pokes. In NW glances add a huge RNG factor to the melee because there doesn't seem to be a reliable way to determine whether or not you will glance.(Off topic, but another idea I think would be neat is to add an option to play as your own customized character alongside the pre-set ones; like being able to choose your own outfit/ weapon skin)